Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Why Progressives Should Oppose Hagel

Following
weeks of trial balloon conjecture, White House point men announced over the
weekend that President Obama would nominate Chuck Hagel, the former Senator
from Nebraska and oft-described “moderate Republican,” to succeed Leon
Panetta as Secretary of Defense.

Conservative
critics immediately raised objections as soon as Hagel’s name surfaced as a
probable nominee in mid November. The usual pack of Neocon watchdogs charged
him with being inadequately hawkish on Iran and out of lock-step in requisite full
support for Israel.

Towing its increasingly
neocon editorial line, the Washington Post on November 18th editorialized that Hagel
was “not
the right choice for defense secretary.” Citing the ex-Senator-cum-Washington
insider’s public record, the WAPO suggested that, “Mr. Hagel’s stated
positions on critical issues, ranging from defense spending to Iran, fall well
to the left of those pursued by Mr. Obama during his first term.” (Hagel once had
the temerity to suggest that Pentagon spending should be “pared down.”
Imagine!).

Detractors dredged up a
back-when Senate vote against Iran sanctions as right-wing media hacks echo
chambered alleged “anti-Semitism” based upon the Senator’s years ago use of the
phrase “Jewish lobby”. He certainly rankled some Israel right-or-wrong types in 2006 when
he said, “I’m not an Israeli senator. I’m a United States senator. I support Israel, but my first interest is I take
an oath of office to the Constitution of the United States, not to a president, not to a
party, not to Israel. If I go run for Senate in Israel, I’ll do that.”

Liberal
backers, in response, immediately sprung to the Nebraskan’s defense. The
Atlantic’s James Fallows described him as a “wise bipartisan pick” with Vietnam combat-vet cred and a “cautious
realist-centrist record” while filleting the “bogus
case against Chuck Hagel.”

Hagel in
August, 2005 had won favor among centrist types when he became the first
Republican Senator to publicly criticize the Iraq war and to call for US withdrawal. Criticizing then
President Bush, the GOP, and the Patriot Act's erosion of civil liberties that
December, Hagel stated that, "I took an oath of office to the
Constitution, I didn't take an oath of office to my party or my
president," He later went on, in 2007, to criticize plans for the Iraq war
“surge”. Such rank-breaking statements, while endearing him to disquieted
anti-war moderates have never been forgotten by the Right.

The
problem today is that neither Hagel’s detractors nor his supporters have really
fully laid out who he is or why progressives should firmly oppose his
appointment as the Pentagon’s top gun. Certainly, those to the left should not
fall into the trap of cheering on Obama’s latest War Department pick, solely
because the Right stands opposed.

Currently
a member of the board of
directors of Chevron, Hagel led the charge in 1997 to block ratification of
the Kyoto Protocol, the international agreement that would have committed the US and other industrial nations to
reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The Hagel-Byrd Resolution, co-authored by the coal friendly Democrat and “conscience of
the Senate,” West Virginia’s Robert Byrd, argued that the Kyotofailed to include developing countries and posed barriers to US
economic expansion.

On his way
through the revolving door to higher fame and fortune, Hagel announced in
September, 2007, that he would not seek a third term in the Senate. While his current
mainstream biographies note that he happens to teach at Georgetown, they somehow consistently miss
mentioning that he might have to give up his current position on Chevron’s
board.

He
probably will have to rotate out of his seat as co-chair
of the President’s
Intelligence Advisory Board, the appointed body of“distinguished citizens selected from the national security,
political, academic, and private sectors…, independent of the Intelligence
Community, free from day-to-day management or operational responsibilities..,
with full access to the complete range of intelligence-related information.”

Hagel also currently sits
on the board of directors of the American
Security Project, a Washington-based imperial think tank committed to
“understanding and articulating American beliefs and values related to U.S. foreign policy,” and forging a
domestic “bipartisan consensus” on “a new national security strategy that will restore America’s leadership…”Founded in 2007, with Hagel and Hillary
Clinton’s State Department heir apparent, John Kerry as founding members, the
ASP is heavily involved in “energy security policy research,” and “the
national security need for biofuels” (i.e., the “greening” of the Pentagon)
as well as “cultivating strategic responses to 21st century challenges.”

If he
receives Senate confirmation, Hagel’s current position as Chair of the non-governmental
but immensely influential Atlantic
Council will most likely be placed on hold, at least until he returns to
“private life.”

Seldom
discussed, the Washington-based Council was founded 50 years ago as an elite
foreign policy NGO committed to forwarding US “national interest” and continued
Cold War supremacy within the “Atlantic community” and beyond. According to
foreign policy critic Rick Rozoff, itwas established in 1961 by former
Secretaries of State Dean Acheson and Christian Herter to bolster
support for NATO. Under US leadership, Atlantic Councils were
set up in affiliated member states for the same purpose.

A recent list of Council associates
reads like a “who’s who” of the Washington
foreign policy establishment.Henry Kissinger’s disciple, the former
National Security adviser Brent
Scowcroft has played a significant role in shaping the contemporary
organization.Obama’sfirst National
Security Advisor James
L. Jones and UN Ambassador Susan Rice, the first pick to succeed Panetta at
the Pentagon, formerly worked for the Council.

Hagel’s predecessor as Council Chair, Jones had been a Marine Corps
four-star general, top commander of U.S. European Command and NATO Supreme
Allied Commander Europe from 2003 to 2006. He also served as Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice’s special envoy for Middle East security
and in that position openly discussed deploying NATO troops to the West
Bank, a recommendation echoed by his Atlantic Council colleague, Scowcroft.

Scowcroft, a retired Air Force general and National Security Advisor under
Presidents Ford and George H. W. Bush, is now the chairman of the Atlantic
Council’s International Advisory Board.

Co-chaired by Hagel, the Council’s Strategic
Advisors Group is a standing body of roughly 40 senior experts on NATO and
transatlantic security issues. Founded in 2007 by then Council Chairman Jones,
Scowcroft, and others, the SAG describes itself as the “pre-eminent institution
for strategic thinking and analysis on Euro-Atlantic security” through its “thought
leadership” on issues such as Afghanistan/Pakistan, and NATO’s Strategic
Concept.

The SAG produces major public policy briefs and reports, and hosts
off-the-record “Strategy Sessions” for senior U.S.
and European civilian and military officials, while providing “informal, expert
advice to senior policymakers.”

With Chuck Hagel at the helm, the Council’s attentions have increasingly turned
toward Central and South Asia. As part of that pivot,
especially toward oil and uranium rich and strategically located Kazakhstan,
the Council undertook a project in 2010 entitled ‘Eurasia as Part of Transatlantic Security’.
Also headed by Hagel, that effort has sought to “shape the transatlantic debate
on security in Eurasia…”

The Council’s Eurasia Task Force
has been funded by a grant
from the Kazakhstan government, currently ruled by the authoritarian
“president for life,” Nursultan Nazarbayev. Additional support has come though
the Council’s Strategic Advisory Group as well as from EADS-North America, the US subsidiary of one Europe’s largest
military aircraft manufacturers presently providing weaponry to repressive
regimes across Central Asia.

While
still in elected office and well before he joined the BOD at Chevron (today a
major investor in Kazakhstan’s Caspian Sea oil fields) or became Chair of the
Atlantic Council, Hagel had been the only US Senator to visit all five Central
Asian republics. His dovetailing
interests and ties to the region have continued since.

She
pointed out how Chevron was then poised to sign a major agreement with the
authoritarian government of Turkmenistan to develop the country’s largely
untapped hydrocarbon reserves. Noting Hagel’s clear interest in and ties
to Caspian oil and gas development, she also pointed to his stated record in
support of transparency and anti-corruption.

She called
upon him to be put his weight behind a call for Turkmenistan, one of the world’s most
repressive countries, to “dramatically and measurably improve its human rights
and accountability record before Chevron invests in its hydrocarbon sector.”

Kinman went on to argue that, “If Chevron engages with a repressive regime such as Turkmenistan to secure hydrocarbons without first insisting on significant, demonstrable improvements in human rights, transparency and rule of law, it will strengthen anti-democratic tendencies and stifle the development of an already severely compromised civil society, as it has in Burma, Nigeria, Columbia and in numerous other countries around the world.”

Addressing the now would-be Secretary of Defense, she went on: “Senator Hagel, as a new board member, you have a tremendous opportunity and responsibility to raise the bar for corporate responsibility in the Caspian to a level that is in accordance with the Chevron Way, for starters, but more importantly, in accordance with international law and practice.”

“Senator Hagel,” she asked, “Are you prepared to insist that your company take a principled stance in favor of human rights in Turkmenistan today?”

Hagel did not respond to Kinman. Instead, Chevron CEO John Watson encouraged Crude Accountability to write the Senator at a later time.

Perhaps during his confirmation hearings, some current Senator will elicit some answers to similar questions as Kinsman’s regarding Hagel’s concerns for “energy security” and a his apparent willingness to overlook the nature of repressive regimes in exchange for such. The prospect is unlikely.